The painting was inspired by The Narrative of Fredrick Douglass (1845), a slave memoir, and how his life’s struggle was to gain his freedom as well as to change the perceptions and prejudices towards people of color during that time. Douglass believed that the path to freedom is through knowledge, that education is the key to free oneself whether physically or spiritually, to enlighten one’s mind is and to seek a better life for one’s self. Douglass’s Work had inspired me; his messages of peace and equality moved me to paint his likeness, and the message I chose to write on this artwork was one that exposed the religious justifications of inhumane and heinous acts. To see something as pure as devotion to your faith to be twisted into an excuse for misdeeds that in fact conflict with said faith is truly horrible; in the case of Fredrick Douglass it was the slave owners who used religious scripture to falsely justify slavery. I found it despicable and unfortunately relevant in today’s modern age. This painting is an expression of my feelings towards the spread of hatred and abuse.
“The Beauty in the Beast”
I chose to do an abstract image that I believe accurately depicts slavery. I did this as I have learned that slavery was not just a physical prison, rather a mental one too. Therefore, abstracting my idea was convenient as it enabled me to represent both sides of slavery; the one we can see and the one we need to understand. I have abstracted an image of a slave on his knees as I found that one of the best ways of portraying slavery was through the notion of begging. The sharp/pointy edges throughout the design represents the feelings of a slave. They represent madness, pain, and regret. I also used a fire effect to emphasize more on the idea of violence and the suffering of a slave. I chose to title my design “The Beauty in the Beast” because at first sight it is a man on fire with sharp edges, but at closer look he is a slave begging for his freedom.
The one-act play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell inspired me to create this graphic image. The head of Mrs. Wright has been replaced by the bird cage to symbolize the mystery in the story, and because the bird is a symbol for Mrs. Wright, who was like a bird in her youth. She is also like a bird as a middle-aged women, a dead bird which represents her dead feelings. I made the blood drip from the bird to connect the dead bird and the sad woman who killed her husband by hanging.
Indelible 